Matthews: MAKE YANKS GRATE AGAIN! Manny Machado would give Bronx Bombers something they have missed since A-Rod... a villain

By Wallace Matthews

Oct 18, 2018 | 10:50 AM

The Yankees won 100 games in 2018, nine more than they did the year before, but all season long I had the sneaking suspicion something was missing. Now, I know what it was.

A villain.

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For the second straight season, there was no one on the Yankees roster an opponent could hate, or a Yankee fan needed to tolerate by telling him or herself, yeah, he’s a jerk, but he’s our jerk.

The also had no one to serve as the obligatory clubhouse distraction, the one guy who could be counted on to deflect unwanted attention from his teammates with his own foolish antics.

For more than a decade, Alex Rodriguez willingly served that role. But since his forced retirement in August 2016, no one has been able to fill that void. After all, who could dislike Aaron Judge or Didi Gregorius or Luis Severino or Aaron Hicks or even Giancarlo Stanton?

Enter Manny Machado.

Manny Machado is exactly the type of player the Bombers have been missing these last two seasons. (Jae Hong / AP)

Now, I have come to realize Machado would not only replace Didi. He would replace A-Rod, too.

His antics in the NLCS have not cooled me on the idea of signing Machado. On the contrary, they have only increased my enthusiasm for the move.

First of all, with the exception of his appallingly cheerful lack of hustle, nothing Machado has done in the past week is anything A-Rod hadn’t already done, only better.

Did a hard slide into second base or a suspiciously close step at first really measure up to trying to slap a ball out of an opponent’s glove or screaming “Ha!" at an infielder camping under an infield fly?

And as far as we know, Machado has yet to solicit a female fan’s phone number from the dugout, or urinate on a relative’s wall.

He hasn’t kissed his reflection in a mirror nor, again as far as we know, hung a portrait of himself as part-centaur over his bed.

In spite of all that, Yankees fans came to love A-Rod on the field and to be mostly amused by him off the field.

And his antics often served to detract attention from some of the more serious issues affecting the Yankees, such as Derek Jeter’s precipitous decline as a player in his final season or the team’s failure to make it to the post-season in three of his last four seasons.

Machado could serve a similar role for these Yankees.

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Even before George Stienbrenner bought the team in 1973, the Yankees have always had a larger-than-life personality on the roster who overshadowed the rest of the team. Ruth. DiMaggio. Mantle. Reggie. Jeter. A-Rod.

The Bombers haven't had a villain on the roster since A-Rod was pushed into retirement in 2016, (Kathy Willens / AP)

But as great as Judge has been or Stanton still might be, neither of them seems equipped to fill that role.

Face it, they are bland guys, pleasant enough most days but largely invisible off the baseball field.

Machado would be different, an outlier in a roomful of muscular CPAs, a player in the mold favored by George M. but seemingly shunned by his heir and successor, Harold Z.

Having Machado on the team would give Red Sox fans someone to truly hate, and perhaps inject some new energy into a rivalry that seems to have become all too collegial.

It would take the focus off Judge, who may be a clubhouse leader but seems not to love being the team spokesman. And it would take some of the heat off Stanton, who despite decent production (38 home runs and 100 RBI) in his first season in the Bronx often seemed like a deer in the headlights under the relentless media scrutiny. It often appeared as if Stanton would be content to blend into the background in the Yankees clubhouse, which is not easy to do when the numbers on your contract add up to $325 million.

Machado’s contract is likely to eclipse that, and with all the money comes most of the scrutiny. And unlike Judge or Stanton, the guess here is he will bask in the spotlight, not shrink from it.

And selfishly speaking, it seems as if he will be a tabloid columnist’s dream, as A-Rod was for a dozen seasons here.

So what if he doesn’t always bust it to first? Neither did Robinson Cano. And so what if he has more than a little punk in him? So did A-Rod. And Aaron Boone is on record saying he likes guys who play with swagger.

Machado certainly has plenty of that. And, along with a deep starting pitching and the ability to hit with runners in scoring position, that is what seems to have been lacking in the 2018 Yankees.

For decades, the Yankees were the team the rest of the nation loved to hate. They were not just winners but champions.

But now, the Yankees are almost lovable, and frankly, a little bit boring.